Chapter Text
"Puppies, the food is ready!" Derek told them; he had just finished setting up the table so the children could have dinner.
The shouting pack on the run to the table was deafening, but with one question everyone adult in the meeting froze.
“Theo, where's Nolan? He must be hiding so as not to sit down to eat again! ” Lydia warned, as she tried to make Stiles stay quiet on the table.
The chimera scanned the yard for it's own baby, but he was nowhere to be found, not even his heartbeat was close. He swallowed, and ran to Liam before allowing himself to be nervous.
"Liam, our puppy, do you know where he is?"
The blond man who chatted happily with Corey and Mason turned to face his husband.
"I let him go to the bathroom alone and ..." He looked at his watch and was startled to see that it had been well over ten minutes that his son was in the bathroom. "And from what it seems he must be flooding the bathroom"
The two parents ran worriedly into the house, shouting their son's name. The barbecue guests following the movement with their heads, ears wide open, everyone was worried.
"He wouldn't run, right?" Theo asked, with fear in his eyes, that they had become so confident and let their puppy escape again.
"I don't think ..." Liam sniffed, upset and made a shocked noise, and ran even faster towards the guest bathroom. "THEO, GET MELISSA!"
"What? Why?" As he approached the bathroom Theo smelled the pungent smell of blood, the blood of his baby.
Fear was rising in his throat, he did not know what to do when he saw the puppy lying sloppily on the floor, its head resting in a pool of blood, his own blood.
“Nolan? Nolan, my baby, wake up! ” Liam moved the boy carefully. "Come on Theo, get her in here!"
The man was still standing there at the bathroom door, unable to properly process what was happening, his fear for his puppy's life beat hard, he only managed to breathe when he quieted down and heard that his boy's heart was still beating, strong and peaceful, as if sleeping.
"You don't have to shout, I'm here!" Melissa, the gray-haired, tired-looking woman appeared at the bathroom door with the first aid kit ready in her hands. "When you have so many children in a gathering, you can expect at least one knee scratched."
"I don't know what to do... He doesn't wake up!" Liam held his puppy close to his chest and sobbed, looking at the woman.
"Take it easy, take it easy, your desperation won't help anything now, bring him to the kitchen table."
Theo helped Liam to his feet, carefully getting up with their child in his lap, they where both anxious and scared with his son's accident, but the woman was quite calm.
"I bet he is fine, but I will need your enhanced senses to help me." The woman took everything off the table, and got a bottle of alcohol. "I'm going to need scissors, or a razor, anything to scrape the hair around the wound."
Liam ran to get the hair clipper, while Theo helped the woman remove his son's shirt and wipe the blood off his face. When he returned with the machine, she took it and cut the hair around the wound.
“Here, see? It is very small, but this area tends to bleed a lot ... ”She cleaned with more alcohol. "Now, I need any of you to two to focus beyond your distress and answer some questions, right?"
While doing their job, the parents stood around, holding hands, afraid to touch the child, feeling useless and irresponsible.
"Is his heart rate normal?"
"Yes, as if he were sleeping, is that good?" Liam looked at the woman's face, anxious for an answer.
"Yes, yes, it is normal." She sighed, having finished cleaning the wound with alcohol. “And do you feel any anguish coming from him? Something bad?"
"No ... It's like he's sleeping." Theo swallowed, and stroked Nolan's hand very carefully.
"Okay, now come over and smell him,I want to see if you can smell blood under his skin, something your wolf could scream as if something was really wrong with your pup." Nolan was peacefull, his head was no longer bleeding and appeared to have clotted.
"Like a hemorrhage?" They both leaned over to frantic sniff their pup and take a good look at the boy, their wolves weren't stressed, they just wanted to cuddle, lick and pamper the puppy. It didn't look like something bad would have happened, just a scare. "We don't feel anything unusual, just a great sense of ... protection?"
“Okay than, that's great! I'm going to wake him up then. I didn't think that it was a big trauma because usually the behavior of the supernatural parents denounces soon if something very bad had happened... And we must not forget that Lydia is also out there ... ”She took two butterfly bandages and put them on Nolan's wound. “I'm going to ask him some questions too, but it's normal for him to be unbalanced, unable to speak properly, maybe a little nauseated, but I recommend pain medicine, rest, some ice and plenty of liquid."
Melissa took something out of her bag and passed Nolan's nose, who whimpered and opened his eyes slowly.
"Hey there honey... How are you feeling?"
She waited a little, messing with Nolan's bangs, while his parents waited quietly and apprehended an unexpected reaction from their puppy.
The boy just took a good look on his surroundings, and frowned.
"Aunt Mel?" Nolan made a slight hiss of pain. "Aunt Mel, I have an owie, in my head."
"Yes, yes, you do. But your daddies will take care of it, okay? They will give you a very good tasting medicine." She giggled and kissed his forehead. "Can you remember what you were doing?"
"I was using the bathroom and then... Then..." He looked a bit confused. "Something about water ballon fight? But Auntie, I promiss, I was just washing my hands as Papa taught me!"
"It's okay kiddo, I promise, wash your hands is the correct thing to do... But careful next time, okay? But you will be just fine now..." She laughed and turned to Theo and Liam, patted their tense arms and went back to the bathroom, probably to clean up all that blood.
"Am I in trouble?"
Both men sighed in relief and stepped forward to cover their son with kisses.